Адриан Росс: Жизнь и творчество выдающегося лирика британской сцены

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Arthur Reed Ropes (23 December 1859 – 11 September 1933), better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the most important lyricist of the British stage during a career that spanned five decades. At a time when few shows had long runs, nineteen of his West End shows ran for over 400 performances. Starting out in the late 1880s, Ross wrote the lyrics for the earliest British musical theatre hits, including In Town (1892), The Shop Girl (1894) and The Circus Girl (1896). Ross next wrote the lyrics for a string of hit musicals, beginning with A Greek Slave (1898), San Toy (1899), The Messenger Boy (1900) and The Toreador (1901) and continuing without a break through World War I. He also wrote the English lyrics for a series of hit adaptations of European operettas beginning with The Merry Widow in 1907. During World War I, Ross was one of the founders of the Performing Rights Society. He continued writing until 1930, producing several more successes after the war. He also wrote the popular novel The Hole of the Pit and a number of short stories.

Ross was born in Lewisham, London. He was the youngest son and fourth child of Ellen Harriet Ropes née Hall, of Scarborough, and William Hooper Ropes, a Russia merchant. Ross's parents lived in Normandy, France, but sent him to school in London at Priory House School in Clapton, Mill Hill School, and the City of London School. He later attended King's College, Cambridge, where, in 1881, he won the Chancellor's Medal for English verse for his poem "Temple Bar", and also won the Members' Prize for the English essay. In 1883 he graduated with a first class degree, winning the Lightfoot scholarship for history and a Whewell scholarship for international law. He was elected a fellow of the College. He was a Cambridge University graduate and don, teaching history and poetry from 1884 to 1890 and writing serious and comic verse of his own, the first volume of which was published in 1884. In 1889, he published "A Sketch of the History of Europe". He was also a translator of French and German literature under his own name.

During a brief illness in 1883 after catching cold at the University Boat Race, Ross used the lonely time in bed to write the libretto of an entertainment entitled A Double Event. This was produced at St. George's Hall, London in 1884 with music by Arthur Law, and Ross used the name "Arthur Reed". His next work for the stage, also as Arthur Reed, was the book and lyrics for a musical burlesque, Faddimir (1889 at the Opera Comique), with music by fellow Cambridge graduate, F. Osmond Carr. The position of "lyricist" was relatively new, as previously the writers of libretti would invariably write the lyrics themselves. As the new Edwardes produced "musical comedies" took the place of burlesque, comic opera and operetta on the stage, Ross and Harry Greenbank established the usefulness of a separate lyricist.

Ross contributed lyrics to almost all of the Gaiety Theatre's shows, beginning with The Shop Girl (1894, with his song "Brown of Colorado") and Go Bang in 1895. He wrote over two thousand lyrics and produced lyrics for over sixty musicals thereafter, including most of the hit musicals through World War I. In 1896, he contributed to the Gaiety Theatre hit, The Circus Girl. He also wrote lyrics for the one act comic opera, Weather or No (1896), which played as a companion piece to The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre, as well as several other Savoy operas, such as Mirette (1894), His Majesty, or The Court of Vignolia (1897), The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (1897) and The Lucky Star (1899). When Edwardes found success, beginning in 1907, in mounting English language versions of the new generation of continental European operettas to the London stage, Ross wrote the English lyrics for the adaptations, often with libretti by Basil Hood. His words to the songs in The Merry Widow (1907) became the standard English version of that piece, performed throughout the world for many decades. Other Continental musicals that Ross anglicised included A Waltz Dream (1908), The Dollar Princess (1909), The Girl in the Train (1910), The Count of Luxembourg (1911), The Girl on the Film (1913) and The Marriage Market (1913), most of which had enduring success throughout the English speaking world. and a musical based on The Toymaker of Nuremberg by Austin Strong, which was produced as a Kingsway Theatre Christmas entertainment. Ross also wrote Short History of Europe, edited Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters (Selection and Life), and was a contributor to Punch magazine.